A Rare Recovery For A Rare Disease

GLOUCESTER — A Gloucester man is fighting to regain his health after doctors feared West Nile virus would take his life.

Two years ago Brad Dame wasn't given much chance to live.

His fate -- falling to the bite of a mosquito -- was the grim buzz in Gloucester County in the fall of 2003.

Brad's mother, Elsie Dame, said the doctors weren't encouraging.

"They didn't give us any hope for him to survive," she said Monday. "Then, when he did, they said he'd probably be a vegetable."

While she talked, her son sat in a wheelchair nearby eagerly waiting for Kim Machmud, a nurse's aide, to fix him a milk shake.

West Nile is rare. In 2003, 26 human cases were reported in the state, and last year, the disease sickened five people. No human cases have been reported in Virginia this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Brad, 42, whose nerves and muscles had been paralyzed by the mosquito-transmitted disease, is gradually regaining the use of his body. His progress has come with the cost of countless hours of therapy. He's even learning how to talk again.

If there's a silver lining in his ordeal, the once robust carpenter and avid outdoorsman enjoys the constant attention of family and friends. While he waited for his milk shake, neighbor Nina Buchanan stopped by with fresh brownies she's baked. Buchanan hand-fed him a brownie, inspiring chortles of delight between nibbles.

Before that, Machmud had clipped his fingernails and toenails. When a visitor arrived, a broadly smiling Brad shook hands with a powerful grip and an explosive greeting. Later, his nurse wheeled him across the yard to fetch his dad, Tommy Dame, to the house. Then Brad drove several runs on a Wheel Horse riding mower through an obstacle course of upturned plastic buckets.

Finished with that, he let Machmud help him walk up the flight of stairs to the elevated first floor of the house and back into a wheelchair.

"We're not going to put a ramp in," his mother said firmly. "I think that's a reminder that someone there is handicapped. Brad's not handicapped. He's sick, but he's going to get well."

His parents figure he was bitten while leading a crew to clean up and do major repairs to the family's Robins Neck home after Hurricane Isabel filled the house with 19 inches of water.

"He worked almost night and day, trying to prevent mildew and mold from setting in," his mother said. She believes his exhaustion had lowered his resistance to the virus. He became ill, then went into a coma, which lasted 12 days.

Elsie said it took her son's doctors three days to diagnose the rare disease. "They finally did a spinal, and that had to go to three different labs," she said.

When the paralysis set in, Brad had to be fed by tube, an ordeal than lasted eight months.

The first sign of hope for his parents came after Elsie saw one of her son's toes move.

"He was in a wheelchair, and I told a friend I believe I saw his toe move. I said, 'Brad, move your toe.' He moved it a tiny bit, and I said, "Thank God his mind works."

Tommy said that small demonstration of his son's mind/body coordination had a huge impact. "You'd think he walked," he said.

Elsie said the doctors now call her son's survival a miracle.

"It is. I believe it's a miracle," she added. "I think it's a combination of prayer, therapy and the love of family and friends." *